Diseases & Treatments

Welcome to the Transplantat Center at Heidelberg University Hospital

Please click on image for Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

At the Heidelberg Transplant Center, we have created a modern center for excellence that is one of the leading transplantation programs in the world today. Thanks to our well qualified and highly experienced team of physicians, who have access to the latest equipment, we are able to provide you with medical services that meet the highest standards.

Heidelberg also has one of the longest traditions in transplantation in all of Germany. Since 1967, over 2,000 kidney transplantation procedures have been performed here, and since 1987, more than 1,000 liver transplantation procedures. Specialized programs for heart and pancreas transplantation were developed in the early 1990’s. In addition, the largest department for bone marrow transplantation in Germany today is to be found at Heidelberg University Hospital. Every year at our facility, about 100 patients receive a liver transplant, and another 140 receive a kidney transplant, a large number of these from living donors.

Through intensive research efforts and worldwide collaboration, the Center remains on the cutting edge of science. A special research group is currently engaged in discovering new strategies for preventing rejection reactions. At the Institute for Immunology, data are being compiled and analyzed for the largest study worldwide, the “Collaborative Transplant Study.”

An interdisciplinary treatment philosophy and new, less invasive surgical techniques are the focus of our work, because we want to provide our patients with the highest levels of counseling, care, and professional expertise. The goal of the Center is to gather under one roof all the know-how based upon many years of close collaboration in Heidelberg. A large team of specialists jointly provides care for our patients before and after transplantation to ensure the best possible outcome of treatment.

An area of special interest for the Heidelberg Transplant Center is living organ donation. Since 1967, we have harvested more than 400 kidneys from healthy individuals to transplant into a sick relative, without the donors incurring health complications. Living kidney transplant donors undergo so-called “laparoscopic", minimally invasive surgery. Living donor liver transplantation is also offered at our Center. In this procedure, we remove a section of the organ, which then grows within the span of a few weeks into a fully functioning liver. Since 2002, we have successfully performed 35 living donor liver transplantations.

We are committed to providing you with optimal treatment and to ensuring that you have the most pleasant stay possible at the Heidelberg University Hospital. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us personally.